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Assessment of language impairment in bilingual children using semantic tasks: two languages classify better than one
Author(s) -
Peña Elizabeth D.,
Bedore Lisa M.,
Kester Ellen S.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
international journal of language and communication disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.101
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1460-6984
pISSN - 1368-2822
DOI - 10.1111/1460-6984.12199
Subject(s) - vocabulary , natural language processing , semantics (computer science) , artificial intelligence , psychology , computer science , neuroscience of multilingualism , language impairment , linguistics , developmental psychology , philosophy , neuroscience , programming language
Background Significant progress has been made in the identification of language impairment in children are bilingual. Bilingual children's vocabulary knowledge may be distributed across languages. Thus, when testing bilingual children it is difficult to know how to weigh each language for diagnostic purposes. Even when conceptual scoring is used in vocabulary testing, bilingual children may score below that of their typical monolingual peers. Aims The primary aim was to evaluate the classification accuracy of two approaches (total semantics score and two‐dimensional bilingual coordinate score) that combined lexical–semantic knowledge across two languages. We investigated the classification accuracy of the English and Spanish semantics subtest using the experimental version of the Bilingual English Spanish Assessment (BESA) with bilingual children with and without language impairment. Methods A total of 78 bilinguals with balanced exposure to English and Spanish (15 with language impairment, 63 with typical development) participated. Children were between 4;0 and 6;11 years old. Discriminant function analysis explored the extent to which these children were accurately classified when combining Spanish and English subtests. Outcomes & Results Discriminant analysis yielded above 85% correct classification for balanced bilingual children for both approaches. Conclusions & Implications For the most accurate assessment and diagnostic decision‐making for bilinguals, approaches that consider both languages together are recommended.